


put that baby back where it came from, or so help me

by reptilianraven



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Aliens, Humor, M/M, Mutually Ambiguous Unconfirmed Dating, Pining, nothing like a baby to get that mutual pining to actually get somewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 04:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17418803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reptilianraven/pseuds/reptilianraven
Summary: “I think the telekinetic, possibly alien baby has imprinted on Todd and now she’s trying to kill me so she can have all his attention to herself.”“Okay, let’s, uh. Let’s calm down—”“Farah, you have to believe me! Whenever I see her and Todd, I feel like I’mdying. And shejust so happensto have powers, so what other explanation is there?”“Oh, Dirk,” Farah says in the tone that Dirk has now come to learn means that somewhere along the way, he’s missed something huge and rather obvious.-A case drops a telekinetic baby into the agency’s care and Dirk feels...overwhelmed whenever he sees Todd competently, wonderfully, lovingly taking care of a child.





	put that baby back where it came from, or so help me

**Author's Note:**

> i thought to myself, hm, how many self indulgent tropes can i fit into one fic, and then this fic was born from the ashes of that thought like a ridiculous phoenix.

Dirk doesn’t _not_ like children, is the thing. He’s got nothing against them. In fact, he thinks they’re delightfully bright and bounding with the kind of energy Dirk wishes adults still had, and probably a lot of other traits Dirk has no idea about. In his line of work, a career filled with mystery, intrigue, and danger, he doesn’t exactly get the chance to encounter many children. So he doesn’t dislike them, he just doesn’t know anything about them other from the fact that they’re small, loud, and at the perfect vantage point to kick one in the shin. He wouldn’t know what to _do_ if he had to interact with a child, so he’s quietly thankful that he’s never really had to.

So when Dirk finally gets the agency door open after jostling the keys a couple of times—Todd just behind him, the both of them bickering over whether or not pouring the milk before the cereal was morally permissible or not (Dirk supported milk-first and Todd was against it)—and sees that there’s a baby on his desk, he thinks his next action is pretty justified.

Dirk shuts the door.

“Dirk!” Todd yelps, nearly getting smacked in the face by the door.

“What!” Dirk says, matching Todd’s volume.

“There’s a _baby_ in there.”

“Yes, I saw it.”

Todd gestures at where Dirk is still holding the doorknob. “So why’d you shut the door?”

“Because there’s a baby in there!” Dirk never thought a conversation could go in circles in under three seconds, but here they are. “I don’t know how it got there!”

“Yeah, I figured.”

Inside the agency, there is the horrifying, telltale sound of a baby beginning to cry.

“Oh god,” Dirk says. The sound is screeching and awful and Dirk is filled with the odd urge to run away. 

Todd, tired of waiting around, huffs and opens the door himself, leaving Dirk to either stand by the entrance awkwardly or scurry along after him. His legs make the decision for him and Dirk follows after Todd, watching a safe distance away as Todd makes his way to Dirk’s desk. Sitting innocently atop all of the paperwork Dirk has yet to do is a wicker basket, and in the basket, wrapped in a blanket is a screaming, crying, baby.

Todd picks the baby up.

“Don’t!” Dirk says.

“Dirk, the baby is _crying_ , we can’t just not do anything.”

“I wouldn’t know, I don’t know anything about babies,” Dirk shuffles from side to side nervously as Todd adjusts his hold on the baby, cradling it expertly in his arms. “What are you doing?” He says, an edge of panic in his voice. In Todd’s arms, the baby is looks so small and tiny and fleshy and _small_.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Todd raises an eyebrow.

“Are you sure you should be holding it?” Dirk shuffles closer, looking at the baby over Todd’s shoulder. Its face is scrunched up like a bath loofah. “We don’t know how it got here, or if it broke in. What if it’s dangerous?”

“Dirk, it’s a baby, not a grenade,” Todd rolls his eyes. 

“The two are not mutually exclusive,” Dirk says, and that apparently is the baby’s cue to start crying louder.

Dirk winces, stepping back a bit, and he gets ready for Todd to snap at him for setting the tiny noise human off louder. But Todd doesn’t do that. Todd holds the baby close, ducks his head, and starts quietly shushing it like he’s been doing this his whole life.

“Hey, shhhh,” Todd says softly, rocking the baby slightly. “It’s alright. You’re alright. You hungry? We can get you something.”

Todd keeps talking, and his voice seems to do something to the baby, because it stops yowling and calms down into a soft snuffle. 

Vaguely, Dirk realizes that something very, very strange is happening. He feels warm all over. His chest is tight as if there’s an anvil sitting on his ribcage. His brain is torn between two actions, either wanting to cry a little bit, like how he wants to cry when watching videos of puppies learning to walk, or wanting to throw himself out the window.

“Are you—” Todd looks up from the baby. The small, tiny, fragile, baby that Todd, wonderful, amazing, fantastic Todd is holding and handling quite well. “—okay?”

“Perfectly fine. Absolutely,” Dirk lies, trying not to think about how inexplicably not fine things are.

Dirk decides to do what he always does when he finds himself in situations that are so Not Fine that he can't think very well; he calls Farah.

-

“Todd says you’re afraid of babies,” Farah says half an hour later after dropping off the baby supplies in the pantry where Todd looks to be microwaving a bottle of milk.

“Am not!” Dirk huffs, scooching over on the couch to make space for Farah. 

“Did you or did you not shut the door upon seeing it,” Farah says slowly. If Dirk didn’t know her, he’d be slightly intimidated by how serious her tone is, but he can see the mischievous glint in her eyes. She’s having the time of her life picking on him.

“I did. But!” Dirk raises a finger. “That’s no metric by which to measure—”

“Todd says you looked like you saw a ghost.” 

“I looked the appropriate amount of surprised upon seeing a baby!”

“Did not,” Todd says, walking back into the room. Dirk has to avert his eyes after a second, because Todd is holding a bottle to the baby’s mouth and looking competent in a special kind of way that’s making Dirk think of windows again. “I’ve seen you scared, Dirk, and you looked like you were going to shit a brick.”

“Don’t be crass in front of the,” Dirk gestures towards the soft, tiny, fleshy human in Todd’s arms. “The that.”

“The baby,” Todd takes a seat on the couch, next to Farah. From here, Dirk can see the baby’s chubby little hands feebly try to grasp the bottle. 

“Boy or girl?” Farah leans over to look at the baby.

“Girl. She’s still under twelve months old, probably,” the baby in Todd hold grabs ahold of Todd’s pinky. Todd wiggles it around, smiling. “It’s why the formula was a bit expensive. Babies this young should still be breastfed, but, y’know.” He looks at Dirk and Farah “That’s not happening. So she needs supplements, and that sorta thing.” 

Dirk hazards a glance at Farah and, sure enough, she looks as surprised as he feels.

“How do you know so much about babies?” Farah asks.

Todd shrugs. “I had to take care of younger cousins, growing up.”

“Huh,” Farah says.

“Huh,” Dirk says.

Todd narrows his eyes at them. “Why are you two looking at me like that?”

“You’re—” Dirk tries to find a word that fully encapsulates the warzone his feelings are doing. Looking at Todd with a baby is an excruciating mix of something great and something terrifying. Words are ridiculous and terrible and he can’t find a single one so he just clears his throat and mumbles, “You’re, uh, good with her,”

“Surprisingly so,” Farah adds.

“Gonna ignore the backhanded compliment, but okay,” Todd rolls his eyes, bringing his attention back to the baby. “We probably should report a, uh. Found baby. To the police.”

“Checked with missing persons, before I got here,” Farah tells them. “Nobody’s lost a baby in the past month.”

“This could be a case,” Dirk says without the manic excitement he usually has when cases arrive, because this case possibly probably definitely involves a baby. Dirk knows cases. Dirk doesn’t know babies. Dirk doesn’t know why Todd plus baby is making his brain all _weird_.

“Either way,” Todd says. “Unless this baby is, like, an alien, we should probably still report it.” 

Todd pulls the bottle away, but it fumbles and falls out of his grasp. Dirk readies himself for the sound of plastic meeting the floor, for the spill of milk, but none of that comes. 

Because the bottle is floating.

A faint, green glow encapsulates the bottle, and it slowly floats back up to the baby’s raised, grabby hands, glowing with wisps of the same green glow. She happily sucks from the bottle as it floats perfectly, right in front of her face.

Dirk gapes. Farah stares. Todd uses his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“I just had to jinx it,” Todd sighs.

-

In the course of the next few hours, Dirk can admit they get some productive things done. They start calling the baby Kid, because apparently calling her “it” or “that” is rude, and “the baby” is a bit of a mouthful after a while. They also learn that Kid has the uncanny ability to move things without touching them, something Dirk tests out by throwing random things into the air and watching Kid clench her little glowy green sausage fists to stop those things from ever hitting the floor.

This is so obviously a case, but it’s a case involving a baby, and babies need to be taken care of.

Among the agency trio, Dirk was already struck out of the list thanks to his first reaction towards her, and he’s taken off the list permanently after Todd tries to hand Kid to him and Dirk scuttles to the other end of the room saying a _lot_ of reasonable things about how babies are so small and so fragile and “Todd, I can’t hold her, what if I do something wrong and give her problems for her entire _life_.”

Up next is Farah, who Dirk thought would be pretty level headed with a baby. Todd teaches Farah how to hold Kid, and she does so perfectly, but also as if she is holding a bomb and is staring down at the analog timer countdown saying it’s five seconds to detonation.

“Uh,” Todd looks at Farah apprehensively. “Farah?”

“I’m okay. I’m not _not_ okay.” Farah says, looking as stiff as a pillar. She turns to Dirk, and Dirk takes a step back. “Dirk, do you want to try again?”

“No,” Dirk yelps. “No, no, no. Definitely not. You’re doing a wonderful job. Kid is all...held.”

“Are you _sure_.”

“ _Absolutely._ ”

“Maybe if you just tried agai—”

“Okay,” Todd sighs, taking Kid back into his arms before Dirk and Farah manage to play hot potato with her. “I’ll take care of her.”

So Todd takes care of her. 

This leaves Dirk and Farah to figure out the case, and figuring out the case just involves Dirk going around and seeing if things happen. After dropping Todd and Kid off back at his and Dirk’s apartment with detailed instructions to call if he needs anything (from Farah) and a few patented awkward shoulder pats (from Dirk), Farah and Dirk set off into the city to feel the universe, which is just about as frustrating as it sounds. 

Dirk gets back to their apartment later that night tired and stumped, but all thoughts of exhaustion and falling face first into bed and cuddling Todd, as best friends do, disappear from Dirk’s mind when he sees Todd.

Todd who is doing nothing but sitting on the couch, holding Kid to his chest while Kid floats various objects around the room. The floating objects are bizarre, yes, but the thing that is really making Dirk’s chest clench is how natural and _soft_ Todd looks. 

“Hey,” Todd says.

“Hello,” Dirk says, sounding a bit strangled.

“Find anything?” Todd asks while Dirk dodges some floating bits of cutlery to make his way to the couch.

“Afraid not,” Dirk leans over the couch. Kid is asleep in Todd’s arms. Dirk takes a deep breath and tries very hard not to sound like he's having trouble existing in Todd's baby-holding presence. “But some cases start slow before blowing up catastrophically, so I’m not too worried.”

Todd snorts, but then he looks at Dirk who is looking at Kid. Todd smile turns a bit wry. “You sure you don’t want to hold her?”

“One hundred percent,” Dirk huffs, aware enough to tell when Todd is messing with him. Dirk stalls for a few moments, looking for words in the confused jumble of his head. “Thank you,” is what comes out.

“For what?”

“Taking care of a baby while Farah and I do case stuff,” he explains. “This isn’t really an exciting assistant thing to do.”

“I don’t mind,” Todd’s hand comes up to gently cradle Kid’s head. “Kid is a pretty chill baby, aside from the telekinetic powers.”

“You’re—” Dirk is fighting a losing battle with his voice, his sanity, and the urge to bolt to the window. Their apartment is only three floors up. He could make it. “—Very, very good with her.”

“Thanks?” Todd looks up at him, bemused.

Kid hiccups in her sleep, and Todd instinctively starts patting her back.

Dirk needs some air.

“I need to go,” Dirk flails an arm into the air, aiming to gesticulate some sort of action but, thanks to his lack of foresight, just ends up throwing his arm around like it’s undercooked pasta. “I need to go do something. An errand. An errandy errand. Be back in a tick!”

He valiantly strides out of their apartment with his metaphorical tail between his legs, leaning against the shut door, trying to calm his heart. This case needs to end as soon as possible. That is the _only_ way to get rid of this stupid, suffocating feeling. 

-

Three days later, Dirk is slumped in the passenger seat of Farah’s most inconspicuous car, ripping up receipts and folding them into paper cranes. In the basket they found Kid in, under the blanket, Dirk had found a receipt for skeins of yarn bought at the exact yarn store they are currently parked across from. They went in to interrogate the owner and other shifty looking figures, but the general way Dirk exists as a human gets Dirk and Farah banned and kicked out of the store in under twenty minutes. So they’ve decided to do some very sneaky surveillance on the store instead, which mostly involves Farah looking like a cool spy and Dirk looking like a confused birdwatcher. Probably because he was using the binoculars to look at birds, and not at the yarn store. 

Farah plucked the binoculars out of his hands after he started detailing the plumage of a nearby pigeon.

Dirk sighs, finishing up his fifteenth paper crane. Three days isn’t a very long time, but it’s still much longer than Dirk wants this case to last. Kid has been interfering with a lot of things, lately, and it's putting a damper on Dirk's mood. Todd’s attention is primarily focused on Kid throughout every day. Todd can’t be working the case with Dirk because it might be dangerous and that’s not good for Kid. Todd has moved to sleeping on the couch with Kid instead of with Dirk in their bed that they share for best friend reasons.

Even more annoying is that the Weird Feeling hasn’t abated in the slightest, in fact just getting worse and harder to ignore, so he figures the least he can do is find out why he feels so much like a freshly microwaved puddle.

He wants to pin all the blame on Kid, but when he thinks harder, he realizes the feeling isn’t just because of her. Sifting through the events of the past few days, he categorizes every moment he felt weird. Todd making breakfast while holding Kid in some sort of improvised blanket sling. Todd waking up blearily on the couch, Kid soundly sleeping on his chest. Todd scrolling through his phone while Kid mushes at his face. Todd and Kid. Todd and _Kid_.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Dirk gasps. 

Farah jerks violently, lowering her binoculars, and turns her head to look at Dirk. “What? What’s happening?”

“I’ve figured it out.”

“The case?”

“No, the _me_ ,” he says frantically. “Farah, Kid is trying to _kill me_.”

“Kid is—” Farah’s eyebrows scrunch up like confused, well-shaped caterpillars. “—What? How? Why? What?”

“Okay, bear with me here, but ever since Kid had arrived at the agency, something odd has been going on in my head,” at Farah’s disbelieving look, he explains further. “Odder than the usual odd that regularly occurs in my head.”

“Okay,” Farah nods. “And what is that odd thing?”

“Whenever I see Kid and Todd, I feel like jumping out of the window.”

“That’s. Specific.”

“But that’s not all! There are more feelings! Like there’s hot water in my chest, or a betta fish in my skull swimming around and fighting everything it sees!”

“I’m not following,” she says, and Dirk flails his hands around, trying to make this horrifying realization make sense.

Dirk starts simple. “Kid obviously loves Todd, correct?”

“I guess.”

“And without Kid in the picture, I am the thing Todd usually pays attention to, correct again?”

“You sure are,” she sighs, a bit amused now, though Dirk hasn’t the faintest clue why because this is _serious_.

“So there you have it. It makes sense,” 

“No it doesn’t,” Farah tells him, sounding sympathetic. “Nothing makes sense.”

“Kid loves Todd but she doesn’t like _me_.” Dirk says, gearing up for his frightening conclusion. “I think the telekinetic, possibly alien baby has imprinted on Todd and now she’s trying to kill me so she can have all his attention to herself.” 

“Okay, let’s, uh. Let’s calm down—”

“Farah, you have to believe me! Whenever I see her and Todd, I feel like I’m _dying_. And she _just so happens_ to have powers, so what other explanation is there?”

“Oh, Dirk,” Farah says in the tone that Dirk has now come to learn means that somewhere along the way, he’s missed something huge and rather obvious.

“What?” Dirk narrows his eyes. Farah's reaction doesn't seem fitting to Dirk confessing the reality of his imminent, baby-caused demise. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Kid isn’t trying to kill you,” Farah says slowly.

Dirk crosses his arms. “Well, I’d love to hear your explanation for what this all is.”

“Okay,” Farah folds the binoculars, sets it down, and turns to Dirk. Dirk suddenly feels very cornered by Farah’s professional stare. “What, exactly, do you feel when you see Kid and Todd?”

“Hot water. Betta fish. Defenestration,” Dirk counts off on his fingers.

“Yeah, no,” she says. “What do you feel, and try your best not to use convoluted metaphors that barely make sense, when you see them? Be as specific as you can.”

“I feel—” Dirk pauses “—Warm. And mushy. And inclined to wash all the dishes and clean the apartment.”

“You’re doing great. Now put that together with the fact that you’re in love with Todd—”

“I am not!” Dirk shoots up in the seat, looking around quickly just in case Kid had managed to teleport herself and Todd into the car at this exact moment. “Who said that! Not me!”

“Dirk,” Farah says, voice heavy.

He sighs, collapsing back into the seat. “Am I really that obvious?”

“You’ve never been subtle about anything in your life.”

“Untrue.”

“You planned Todd’s birthday surprise right in front of him.”

“Simple lapse in judgement,” he waves a hand dismissively. “Ah, well. My feelings don’t really matter. Not as if he feels the same way.”

“ _Dirk_.” Farah sounds like she’s watching a baby lamb get held at gunpoint, or perhaps watching Dirk try to cook.

“ _Farah_ ,” Dirk copies her tone for the lack of anything better to do.

“You two _live together_.”

“A lot of people live together.”

“If I’m not mistaken, you two sleep in the same bed.”

“As best friends.”

“Oh my god,” Farah actually puts her head into her hands. Dirk pats her on the shoulder softly until she lifts her head again, her face schooled into something that is both determined and pained. “Kid isn’t trying to kill you. You’re just getting flustered because Todd being good with a baby is kickstarting a really weird repressed domestic urge in your brain, and you’re terrified of it, because you two technically, and I don’t understand _how_ , are still not on the same page with your feelings.

“That—” Dirk says instead of wrenching the car door open and running away and perhaps never, ever coming back. “—was scarily insightful.”

“I’ve been working on being more in touch with my feelings and the feelings of others,” she says, sounding proud of herself.

“If my mind wasn’t busy imploding with everything you’ve told me, I’d give you a raise for being generally incredible.”

“ _I’m_ the one who pays _you_.”

“Drat.” He thinks for a moment. “I’d give you a few coupons for telling me to shut up and do paperwork?”

“Now that I’d be interested in,” Farah picks up the binoculars again. “Save it for my birthday.”

-

Because here’s the thing. Dirk and Todd aren’t dating. 

Really.

After Bergsberg, Dirk just spent a lot of time in Todd’s new apartment. It was for a myriad of reasons. Their apartments were right next to each other, Dirk didn’t like being alone, Todd liked the company, Dirk was still hobbling around on crutches and needed help with some things, Todd sometimes needed a reminder to take his meds and Dirk was more effective than any alarm he could set on his phone, and many, many more reasons. Eventually, the reasons just kept piling up much like the way Dirk’s stuff slowly started migrating to Todd's apartment, which is to say that they both knew it was happening, but neither of them brought it up. Dirk didn’t move in with Todd so much as stop living in his own apartment at the exact time he started living in Todd’s. There’s a difference. Somehow. 

Sleeping together, in only the most literal sense of the word, was just logical. Dirk got nightmares and Todd sometimes got them too, and they both slept better when sprawled across each other. If anything, it was pragmatic, and if Dirk’s heart skipped a beat every morning when he wakes up and takes a second to admire how good morning sunlight looks draped over Todd’s still sleeping self, well, that’s neither here nor there. 

Following that, everything else just falls into place. In the morning, Todd makes breakfast while Dirk makes coffee for him and tea for himself. When Dirk can’t find a specific tie of his, Todd doesn’t even have to look up from his phone to tell Dirk exactly where to look. Todd plays his guitar sometimes on quiet nights while Dirk tries to haltingly relearn how to play the piano on Todd’s keyboard. The cases come and they go and in the chaos they work, together, in such an easy, natural rhythm, Dirk can’t imagine ever doing anything else.

Speckled throughout the hectic moments and crazy adventures, Todd sometimes looks at Dirk so tenderly that Dirk doesn’t know what to do with himself. Sandwiched in between all the quiet weekends and mundane bickering, Dirk sometimes catches himself looking at Todd the exact same way, and he wonders just how long an unsaid thing can stay between the lines before something gives. 

So they aren’t dating, but they sure are...Something.

“You understand, yes?” Dirk tells Kid. She’s swaddled in a superb amount of blankets on the couch while Todd is in the shower. Dirk sits on the floor, chin propped up on the couch to look at her. Todd had tasked Dirk to watch over Kid and make sure she didn’t float the lamps around, and Dirk had spent most of the time doing what he did best. Rambling endlessly. “We aren’t dating.”

Kid gurgles softly.

“I am sorry, by the way, for accusing you of wanting to murder me,” Dirk sighs. “It was a simpler explanation than this whole complicated feelings business.”

Kid darts her chubby little arm out and thwacks Dirk on the head.

“I suppose I deserve that,” he smiles. For all that Kid terrifies him, he’s starting to warm up to her. “What do you think I should do? About the whole mess?”

Kid gurgles more, making a spit bubble. Babies are truly the epitome of conversation.

“I mean,” Dirk wipes her mouth clean with the blanket. “I would _like_ to be dating Todd. He's perfect. But I don’t know if he’d want to date me. We aren’t exactly the most normal of best friends, so I feel like all the regular red flags of returned feelings won’t work, in this situation.” He gives Kid his hand so she’ll stop slapping her fist into his face. “Are you, by any chance, also telepathic? Could you read Todd’s mind and tell me what he thinks?” 

Kid grasps his thumb and blinks at him with her huge, possibly alien eyes.

“You have it easy,” Dirk says miserably. “It’s obvious that Todd loves you.”

“Are you talking to Kid?” Todd says, nearly giving Dirk seven separate heart attacks all at once.

Dirk turns his head to watch Todd pad out of the bathroom. He’s dressed in a faded band t-shirt and sweats, toweling at his damp hair. Just looking at him makes Dirk feel safe and happy and like he’s going to _explode_.

“Yes, I’ve been telling her about—” Dirk looks around the apartment for anything to latch onto, his eyes catching on Todd’s new but growing record collection. “—Frank Sinatra.”

“Sure,” Todd says in the way that he doesn’t believe Dirk’s bullshit but is too comfortable to follow up on it. 

Dirk tries to stand, but Kid’s grip on his thumb surprisingly strong, so he ends up sitting next to her and her bundle of blankets. 

“You have a bizarrely strong grip,” Dirk tells Kid. 

“You know, I thought you hated her. Or kids in general. Or maybe just babies,” Todd leans over the couch, much to Kid’s giggly delight. “But you’re starting to like her. Or at least tolerate her presence without jumping a few feet away.”

“I don’t dislike children or babies, I just don’t know anything about them.” Dirk huffs, gently prying his thumb away from Kid’s grasp. “And I may have been slightly miffed with her getting all your attention.”

“All my—” Todd grins. “Were you—jealous? Of Kid?”

“What! No!”

“Because it kind of sounds like it.”

“I am not jealous, I just—” and Dirk has gotten too far into the sentence to turn back now. “—miss you.”

“Miss me?” Todd’s face does an endearing scrunchy _thing_ that Dirk is sure means an emotion of some sort, though he can’t figure it out at the moment. “Dirk, I still see you everyday.”

“I know, I know, it’s silly.”

“It’s not,” Todd assures him. “I just didn’t expect it.”

Dirk sighs. “As competent and wonderful Farah is, I like doing cases with you a bit better,” he tells Todd, his gut churning with the usual anxiety of being completely honest. “I just like—being with you and talking to you and spending time with you and—”

The words dry up in Dirk’s throat, because Todd is looking at him. Not just any kind of looking, not the usual ‘eyes doing what they’re supposed to be doing’ kind of looking. No, this is different. This is one of those looks that has Dirk breathless. This is one of those looks that Todd does that’s heavy with meaning, so many meanings, all of them meanings Dirk can’t comprehend but can nonetheless feel the weight of. This is one of those looks that makes Dirk want to do something stupid and brave like maybe kiss Todd because Dirk has had an entire lifetime of following what he doesn’t understand but still feels right, and nothing feels more right at this second than closing the distance between the two of them and pressing his lips to Todd’s own.

Something unsaid hangs in the air, and Dirk wonders if now is finally the time it’ll give.

Dirk leans in, very slowly, because this is a moment. They’re having a moment.

A moment that’s ruined when the aliens blast through the apartment door.

-

“Alright, just so I have all the facts,” Dirk says seriously at Alien Queen sitting in the armchair next to the couch that Dirk and Todd were awkwardly bullied into sitting on by the Alien Queen’s five bodyguards, all standing around the apartment with impassive faces. “Let me start with the most pressing conundrum at hand. You thought the detective agency was a daycare?”

The Alien Queen nods solemnly, bouncing Kid in her lap while Kid happily floats Todd’s car keys around, “I thought your detective agency was a daycare.”

Aliens, Dirk thinks, don’t look as he expected them to. Not that he had any expectations to begin with, but he didn’t think they would look like regular humans, very particularly middle aged mothers all wearing some sort of knitted garment. Alien Queen had explained earlier that this wasn’t how they really looked like, that they were all, Kid included, using some kind of cloaking tech to fit in. She had also explained that she was a Queen, that Kid was her daughter, and thus a Princess, and that they were on an intergalactic vacation and needed to drop Kid off somewhere because they went to the alien equivalent of a casino for several days. 

It says something about Dirk’s life that this ranks only fourth on his unofficial list of weirdest things to have happened to him. 

“I apologize for the misunderstanding,” Alien Queen says, her voice echoing eerily, drenched with gentle aplomb. She fixes her gaze on Todd, and Dirk can feel Todd sink into the couch slightly out of intimidation. “Or if I caused you or any of your employees undue distress.”

“No, distress at all, uh. Ma’am,” Todd says awkwardly. He’s been calling her Ma’am this entire time because when she had introduced herself earlier, the intergalactic language translator she wore as nifty statement earrings couldn’t translate her name properly, only coming out as something that sounded like a series of otherworldly cat yowling vaguely backed by synthpop. Dirk has been calling her Alien Queen in his head, though he wonders if he should also just call her Ma’am. Or perhaps your Majesty. Or both, somehow. He’ll cross that bridge when he gets there. “We’re just trying to—work out how this happened.”

“We scanned the entire planet for a suitable babysitter, just for a few days.” She twirls her hands, fingers lighting up with her own green glow, jangling Todd’s car keys in front of Kid’s delighted face. “We told the computer to look for a human who was good with children, generally adept at taking care of others, and open to deal with what your kind calls ‘the supernatural’, and that was how we found your agency.” She points a glowing finger at Todd. “He met all the specifications. Your Todd was perfect.”

“My To—” Dirk chokes out. “Assistant. Todd is my assistant.”

Alien Queen tilts her head. “My translator isn’t updated with modern Earth English, but are not the words ‘assistant’ and ‘babysitter’ synonymous?”

“Not quite,” Dirk says at the same time Todd mumbles, “Close enough.”

“Frankly, I don’t understand why you’re all so surprised,” Alien Queen tells them. “I was sure I left a note in the basket.” 

“There was no note, but you did leave a receipt for—” Dirk fishes the yarn receipt from his pocket and reads it out. “Two skeins of Cascade 220 Superwash Merino.” 

“Oh,” Alien Queen blinks. Frowning, she opens her purse and pulls out what Dirk assumes was the ‘please babysit my alien daughter for a few days’ note. “Must have gotten them switched. My mistake.”

“It was no trouble,” Todd says diplomatically. “We’re just glad Kid is back with you.”

“And you did a wonderful job of looking after—” Alien Queen says what Dirk presumes is Kid’s real name, but all he can hear is a strange, lilting tune of notes, like a birdsong run through television static. A quick glance at Todd’s bewildered expression confirms that neither of them are going to be able to pronounce whatever that was. “And I’m eternally grateful. I’ve deposited the babysitting fee to your agency’s investor.”

That’s going to be a fun phone call from Farah later, Dirk thinks as Alien Queen begins to stand. 

“You did tremendous work. I’ve already recommended your services, both the one I mistook you for and your actual services, to many of my friends. It was a pleasure meeting you all.” Alien Queen says. She pulls a knitted baby sling out of her purse, slips it on, and tucks Kid into it. At the sight of their queen standing, her bodyguards begin to walk, all in sync, towards the door. Or what’s left of it. 

“I’m sorry about your door, by the way,” she says, looking at the wreckage. “It was locked.”

“Well, your Ma’amjesty, just in case you visit the planet again, it’s a human custom to knock,” Dirk says as politely as he can. Todd elbows him in the rib. “I mean, it was no problem at all. Thank you for doing business with us.”

Alien Queen smiles, looking ethereal and uncanny despite the seemingly human face. Her arm lights up with a familiar green glow and she raises it towards the shrapnel of the busted front door. With a graceful flick of her wrist, she knits the door back together, floating pieces back into each other seamlessly until their door is whole once again, looking as if nothing had ever happened. 

Alien Queen turns effortlessly, and walks out the newly fixed door with the rest of the intergalactic knitting circle following after her in a neat, single line. Over her shoulder, Kid open and closes her fist at Dirk and Todd, waving goodbye.

The door shuts closed.

There’s a beat of silence. Then the sound of Todd walking over to the fridge and opening it.

“Do you want a beer? I’m having one.”

“What you drink is rubbish,” Dirk says just so that Todd never forgets. “But yes, please, oh god. Dirk Gently’s Holistic _Alien Daycare_.”

“I _know_ right.”

-

A couple of beers, a hastily ordered pizza, and two hours later and Dirk is pleasantly buzzed. He might’ve been close to almost-drunk earlier, but now most of that has bled away, leaving him relaxed and fuzzy and sprawled out over the bed like a content starfish. This case didn’t get solved so much as dealt with by powers literally out of this world, but Dirk still inexplicably feels accomplished, and he’s going to ride that feeling of achievement until the next case comes.

Todd comes into the room, just having finished tidying up the bottles and the pizza box. He stops at the bed, swatting at Dirk’s leg.

“Move.”

“M’comfy,” Dirk says into the pillow.

“Didn’t catch that,” Todd forcibly wiggles himself into the bed, leaving Dirk with no choice but to straighten himself out to make space.

“Hm,” Dirk removes his face from the pillow. “It’s much quieter now. Without Kid’s crying.”

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Todd says. “You’re here to provide noise in her absence.”

“I do hope you don’t mean to say that the sonorous sounds of me talking is what you constitute as noise.” Dirk says as Todd settles under the covers. “I’ll have to de-promote you.”

“Yeah, yeah, save it for the next time I use up all the milk,” Todd says, a bit wistful.

Dirk wiggles his way into sitting up, leaning against the headboard of the bed. “Do you miss Kid?”

“Not really. A little? It was nice. Kids are great.”

“Do you—’ Dirk says, and only then does he realize what a trainwreck of a question it is. “—want kids?”

“Do I _what?_ ” 

“Sorry! Weird question!” Dirk backpedals as Todd props himself up elbow, presumably just to look at Dirk like he’s grown a second head.

“No, it’s okay it’s not—Okay, yeah it’s weird, but I get how you. Got there. To that train of thought.” Todd laughs softly, a little hysterically, Dirk notes. “And. I don’t know. Probably. I don’t know. God, this is so weird.” 

“Okay,” Dirk says awkwardly. Todd is right. This is weird, but at least the topic of conversation is almost over. “That’s. Nice.”

“Alright, you got your weird question, I want mine,” Todd says, deciding to stretch the weird out for longer in his own way, oh joy. “Why were you so weird about Kid anyway?”

“Babies,” Dirk says dismissively. “I’ve told you that I already don’t know anything about them. Plus, they’re very small and very fragile and I’m not exactly the safest of people to be in the vicinity of.”

“Oh,” Todd says, sounding just a tad disappointed, as if he were hoping for more.

“It, maybe, perhaps wasn’t only Kid I was weird about,” Dirk says. If there’s anybody who can pull the truth out of Dirk, no matter how unpleasant the experience may be, it’s Todd. “A good fifty percent of it was me being weird about you.” Todd’s face teeters on the edge of being offended or insecure and Dirk scrambles to make words to rectify the situation. “Not in a bad way! Seeing you with her just made me—feel things. A lot of really confusing things.”

“What...kind of things?” There’s something different in Todd’s voice. Not in how it sounds, but how it feels. Todd is looking for something, and Dirk doesn’t know what it is or if he’ll find it.

“Things,” Dirk says. Jumping out of the window comes back into his thoughts. Dirk has had enough experience with the universe to know that this is a Situation. A situation that is going somewhere, and it seems like it could go either very badly or very well, depending on what he does next. “I thought I was doing a good job at keeping all those feelings things under wraps. Turns out I’m not as subtle as I’d like to think.”

“Dirk, you’re the world’s most open book.” Todd smiles his little amused smile, and Dirk can’t help but move closer to him. “I don’t know if you can keep anything under wraps.”

How obvious, Dirk wants to ask. How much can’t he keep hidden, he wants to ask. Dirk says, “Really?”

Do we both know something we’re not saying, Dirk wants to ask. Todd says, “Really.”

“ _All_ my feelings are obvious?” And there are so many questions, none of them getting asked, and yet there’s some sort of answer happening, right here, right now, in a muddled, quiet, unsaid kind of way.

“Every single one of them,” Todd says, and for _fuck’s_ sake.

Here they are, sitting right next to each other, very, very close on the bed they share in the apartment they live together in. The room feels smaller than it ever has, as if there’s only space for the two of them and whatever it is that hangs between them, tugging on their sleeves for attention. Todd’s gaze is heavy with _something_ and his eyes flit, just for a second, to Dirk’s lips. Dirk isn’t good at reading situations or people, but if Dirk is as obvious as everybody tells him he is, then Todd must know, and in the face of that knowing, Todd has yet to pull away.

Dirk thinks ‘what the hell’ and decides to do this like he does mostly everything else he does. Hurtling into the situation at hand with all the bravery of a person who doesn’t know what he’s doing but just overwhelmingly wants it _done_.

This proves to be a mistake because when Dirk moves in to kiss Todd, he does it with nary a care for aim or finesse, and basically ends up headbutting his face against Todd’s face.

Dirk wants the ground to open up and eat him alive.

“ _Ow_ ,” Todd reels back.

“Shit! Sorry!” Dirk says, horrified. Todd is holding his hand to his nose, his shoulders shaking with—with soft laughter. “That was a bit—”

“Awful,” Todd finishes for him. He lowers his hand and Dirk gets to see the goofy smile on Todd’s face, something Dirk would appreciate and fawn over if he wasn’t currently dying of embarrassment. “A bit awful.”

“Stop laughing!” Dirk tries to sound very, very offended, but he’s starting to laugh too, which just sets Todd off even more. “Stop it!”

“I’m—” Todd wheezes. “—trying. You’re _really_ red right now.”

“That took quite a lot of bravery, on my part, and you’re just—laughing. At my emotional turmoil.” Dirk pouts, but he can’t keep it up for very long. Not when Todd hasn’t pushed him away. Not when Todd is here, laughing, looking at him with a spark of hope in his eyes.

“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing because this is ridiculous,” Todd’s laughs peter out into the air, leaving the room feeling a bit bright and not as heavy as it had been. He says, “And also because I kind of can’t believe this is happening.” The hope in his eyes flicker with just a second of doubt, and Dirk’s gotten too far to let that get the better of them again. “This is happening, right? You aren’t, like, drunker than I think you are, right?”

“I’m sober enough to know that I did indeed purposely try to kiss you and before cocking it up monumentally,” Dirk says. At the same time, he realizes that he’s a bit tired of unsaid things filling up rooms and homes but refusing to break past whatever barrier keeps them in silence. “But I’m also, well. Still unsure. About what is happening.” 

Dirk starts nervously wringing the blanket with his hands, and before the words tumble out of him, he already knows it’s going to be a disaster and that he’ll be helpless to stop it. He says, “Because things can happen. Really big, huge, large, obvious things, like living together and sleeping together and probably loving you more than what I presume is the regular amount of love alloted for best friends and thinking that maybe, you do to, because there’s rather a lot of evidence that points to it, but I’m—I’m never really _sure_ about what it really means until it all comes together into a explicit answer and—” Dirk clenches the blanket, eyes darting to the window, because oh my _god_ he just keeps _talking_. “Todd, my mouth won’t stop making words. Please say _something_ , you utterly lazy man, so that I can stop saying all these _messy somethings_.”

“I—” Todd blinks at him. Dirk would be more nervous had he not seen that type of look before. It’s the one Todd always gives him when they’ve done something crazy and impossible. “I probably love you too,” Todd says. “More than the regular amount for best friends. A lot more.”

“Well,” Doubt crumbles into a fine dust and sifts itself far, far away. “Why on earth didn’t you say so earlier?”

“Because _you_ didn’t say so earlier!”

 _God_ , the pair of them. No wonder this took ages.

Dirk takes a moment to take in everything Todd said. Everything it means. He says, “You ‘probably’ love me too?”

“More than probably.” 

“Perhaps maybe even certainly?”

Todd rolls his eyes, his glorious, wonderful, fantastic bright and hopeful eyes. Then he blindsides Dirk with, “Can I kiss you?”

“Oh, jesus, Todd, do you even have to ask—”

All the words, the words Dirk has trouble with, the words he can’t control, the words he looks for like missing ties and only find with Todd’s help, all those words disappear because Todd reaches out and cups Dirk’s face. Dirk has half a mind to notice the soft way Todd strokes his thumb over Dirk’s cheek before his brain stops working altogether when Todd leans in slowly. Much slower, much more planned than Dirk had tried earlier. When Todd kisses him, it’s soft, it’s gentle, it’s _perfect_. Dirk sighs, holding onto Todd’s wrist to ground himself when Todd presses in deeper, when Dirk feels his tongue lick at the seam of his lips, when Dirk takes Todd’s bottom lip between his own. When Todd kisses him, everything falls into place.

Dirk doesn’t know who pulled away first. He doesn’t think either of them wanted to, but alas, humans needed air.

“Wow,” Dirk says.

“Wow,” Todd says. 

Dirk doesn’t know what his own face is doing, but he doesn’t really care. He’s too busy drinking in the glorious sight of smile on Todd’s lips which Dirk just _kissed_. 

“This means we’re dating now, yes?” Dirk asks, just to be sure. He’ll be damned if any of this gets swept away by semantics.

“Yeah, we’re dating now,” Todd says, settling down into bed. Dirk follows, falling into the usual routine of cuddling up next to Todd. “Honestly, I think we’ve been dating for a while. Without either of us noticing. I don’t know how that happened.”

“I do,” Dirk nuzzles into Todd’s neck, not as best friends do. As boyfriends do. Oh, what a fantastic thought. “It’s because we’re both morons. Dashingly handsome morons.”

“That we are,” Todd snorts, dorky and content.

A beat of silence. Dirk lets his smile turn sly.

“So, should I be expecting adoption papers in a few years?” he asks, nonchalant.

“Oh my god, shut up,” Todd groans.

Dirk laughs as Todd shoves a pillow into his face. The feeling in his chest is warm and overwhelming and wonderful and for the first time in several days, he doesn’t feel like jumping out of any windows. Todd is smiling, right at his side, looking at Dirk like he’s something worth cherishing, and Dirk wants to stay right here.

**Author's Note:**

> i havent interacted with a baby in my entire life so i was flying blind basically the entire time. sorry for any baby inaccuracies, but in my defense, Kid _is_ an alien. [here’s the yarn alien queen bought](https://www.loveknitting.com/cascade-220-superwash-merino), if youre interested. i am not affiliated to that yarn in any way, i just googled ‘baby safe yarn’ and clicked whatever happened. and lastly, this fic serves as my semi love letter to the word “defenestration”. i love that that word exists _so much_.
> 
> im [actualbird](http://actualbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! thanks for reading :D


End file.
